I updated my search plugin by adding a progressbar:

http://puredata.info/Members/jancsika/searchandbrowseplugin/view

It also prints out the number of files it searched.  There were some reports of a search taking over a minute, but with GNU/Linux and winxp I'm getting about 3 seconds for a little over 9,000 docs (I think I'm searching two different copies of pd-extended libs so that should be well over what you'd typically be searching).  If people are getting long searches please start by telling me how many files you're searching.  Also, the progressbar updates don't start until it's built a list of files and sorted it, so if it's taking a long time when you search before the progressbar appears then that may be the culprit.

Now that the interface updates live I don't really think there's much need to build an index.  You can start reading the first results immediately and even scroll the list as it finishes printing the results. (I guess I can also add a "Cancel" button, too.)

Let me know if there are any bugs.

-Jonathan